That story made me start to think that this meditation work was not just about handling simple things, even one of the challenges Mara threw down would have had me shaking. Oh yeah, Mara just kept coming back. All of the Buddha’s lifetime, he just kept showing up. 

 

By Anne Heerdt

I grew up with fabulous stories from fairy tales to stories on the news to playing Heidi in the neighborhood, and making up my own creations to make sense of the world.

There is a reason that when the pandemic hit we all turned to the world of fiction and art and music—a language that is so vital for making sense of the world. Many of mine were fairy tales from Hans Christian Anderson, followed by Stephen King (a little too young).

Right now it is spooky season in the west, and that is a perfect time to explore some of the really irresistible stories in Buddhism that may not always get as much attention. I know a lot of stories that we use as tools to get deeper into our practice, help make sense of our experience and support growth.

I do have a personal bias; I want the stories that demonstrate how Buddhism and meditation practice can handle the big stuff. I want the stories that bring up big fear, the depth of support we can have, and of course are just wonderfully juicy to tell.

The focus is on the lessons from these stories, how they support us and that basically Buddhism and meditation can really handle a lot more than we sometimes imagine.

These tales are told with my own voice, and while I went back to the suttas often, I will say I am telling them in a voice that makes sense to me rather than with a scholarly focus. I am open to discussion, further questions and feedback on how this affects you.

I will start with my bias. I first learned meditation in college. It appeared to me that everyone was so kind, gentle, caring—and I struggled with that. My personality felt intense, like I was put on this earth to fight something all the time. I was in the first years of Gen X, loved punk music and things like hugging or using kind words did not come naturally. Now if I pulled out all the stops on a truly sarcastic comment then you knew I loved you dearly.

I ended up in a South Asian humanities class in college and thought it was the coolest thing. These were all new stories! While reading about Hinduism and Buddhism I also learned to meditate. I latched onto this practice, and of course struggled for many years getting the hang of it, but just kept coming back.

I went to groups at times, but my natural ability to not trust teachers was a challenge. I just decided I was going to keep doing it, even if I figured I was doing it wrong. I also kept coming back because the meditators had some really great vegetarian food.

The Hare Krishnas were a vegetarian’s savior in the 1980’s.

I still liked punk music, I still could drop you with a sarcastic comment, and I had no illusions of being mature. I figured that I needed a lot of meditation to just function with other people, and reduce my risks of being fired.

I started reading the stories for myself, some wonderful and filled with peace, but I started to find stories that had an edge to them. I imagined that maybe this peaceful demeanor could be trusted if there was a really good, fierce story behind it. The stories helped me trust that this practice could actually support the real stuff that came up with life, instead of just putting a happy face sticker on top of what was happening.

The first story was about Buddha’s enlightenment.

There is this character named Mara who just kept showing up all the time in the Buddha’s life. Mara was already in existence in the Hindu world, as a spirit who is just there trying to mess up enlightenment and peace. I think we can imagine someone in our life who has a few of these qualities.

Of course Mara existed in Hinduism because it was literally the first day of Buddhism, but Mara got a whiff of the enlightenment vibe from Buddha and had to mess with it. So imagine this—in the Samyutta Nikaya the Buddha decides to sit under a tree and really stay put until he gets this enlightenment deal handled. In the verses it says he is sitting there and it is drizzling, which already sounds miserable.

Mara decides to mess with him by being a King Elephant.

That doesn’t do much, so he tries a giant king serpent. He shatters some boulders together, and finally makes a sound like the earth is splitting open. The whole time the Buddha is sitting outside in the drizzling rain. With the rain and exposure, there is a concern of his own health. Also to be considered is the effect on others around with wild animals, and how a body responds to real risk.

I get nervous meditating in a city park at times, I can’t imagine the real physical experience of being in danger.

There are also accounts of Mara throwing magic armies at the Buddha, sending his daughters as physical temptations, and more. While some are fantastic stories of magic that surround the Buddha, he was a human. That means he became hungry, he had regular desires and attractions and his body was just as vulnerable as any other body.

The last big challenge on the day of awakening is one I think many of us can relate to.

Mara told the Buddha that he shouldn’t be the one enlightened as a mortal and human. It really was more of a god realm thing, and then told him to prove it. This hits right at the center of imposter syndrome, the feeling that we are never quite there which can drive us into very stressed and unskillful acts.

That direct challenge to the Buddha was of course handled with calm and peace. He just said that the earth was his witness and placed his hand on the ground. When you see the images of the Buddha with one hand down towards the ground, that is when he verified his awakening with the connection to everything in nature—known as the Medicine Buddha.

That story made me start to think that this meditation work was not just about handling simple things, even one of the challenges Mara threw down would have had me shaking. Oh yeah, Mara just kept coming back. All of the Buddha’s lifetime, he just kept showing up.

So many wonderful, powerful stories teach us lessons and give us images to hold onto in our mind, creating such a rich world that connects us to each other.

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

Did you like this post? You may also like:

Halloween: My Favorite Holiday

Introvert Buddhism: Kama Sutta

 

Comments

comments